Category Archives: Holiday

If you ever have a chance to take a giant, rainbow unicorn float to the beach, I highly suggest you DO IT. Christina bought this bad boy (who we affectionately named Dennis) for $25 at Costco this past winter and yesterday we brought him along with us to Port Aransas, our lifelong favorite beach/city to visit in the great state of Texas. After getting Dennis blown (up), we all hopped on and tried to stay on as my brother, Daniel, pulled us out into the waves. Although we had to karate chop the seaweed and swerve around the jellyfish (my sister, Annie, ended up getting stung on her back), it was still the most fun time ever! We felt like kids again!

Daniel ended up falling asleep on Dennis, so to wake him up I put some Fritos on his back so the seagulls could wake him up, ever so gently, as seagulls do. It. Was. Hilarious.

Best part of any Texas beach trip is going to Whataburger after to gorge on burgers, fries, and coffee flavored milkshakes while your sunburned butts stick to the plastic seats. Speaking of sunburns, this might be the worst one I’ve ever had… Here’s hoping I don’t spend my last couple of days in town in complete misery…

If a random or made-up holiday rolls along and a blogger doesn’t blog about it, did it even happen?! Sure it does, but there’s a lump sum of people who feel obligated to talk about it… it’s oBLOGatory (I made that word up while I was in the shower and, idk, I think it’s funny. Thinking about trade marking it?).

I am not, in any way, knocking Valentine’s Day. I, for one, love this holiday- it might be my favorite of the whole year because of my burning obsession with all things pink. Plus, a day that celebrates love? I love my hot, nerdy husband! Love, love, love him!

I mean, any excuse to go take photos with pink balloons by a cute wall, amIright?! To celebrate V-Day, Joel made us a gourmet dinner of filet mignon (literal translation- cute filet), lobster, with sweet potatoes and asparagus. We had a candle lit dinner at home with Dean Martin playing in the background and it was perfect. It was perfect except for the fact that my lobster still had it’s face and I felt like it was watching me which was awkward. It was 100% dead, but it still had a twinkle in its eyes and I had to keep apologizing as I chowed down.

And just like that, Christmas is in two days… This time of year is known for its ability to fly by, but it seemed to go by even faster this time around. Maybe it’s because we never drank hot toddies and listened to holiday music or decorated the house while the Netflix Fireplace burned in the background. We kept the decor to a minimum this year because a) we somehow misplaced the bin containing most of the ornaments, stockings, etc. and b) our cats decided they like to mess everything up anyway. This is our first Christmas as a married couple! It may be a milestone, but the only thing that’ll really be different is we’ll get to sleep in the same bed at Joel’s parent’s house on Christmas Eve… IT’S A BIG DEAL FOR US.

One pretty cool thing that we (98% Joel) made this year was a gingerbread house version of Frank Lloyd Wright’s Falling Water. His family used to enter (and win!) gingerbread house making contests all the time and they’ve got some pretty mad skills (shameless family brag)! As I watched him build the model first out of cardboard and duct tape (the graham cracker was adhered to the cardboard because we don’t play by any of society’s rules in this house, damn it) I kept telling him that maybe he should have been an architect, he coulda been a contender. His talents know no bounds. He’s kind of the best.

A great, new tradition of ours is to go to the cute, tiny theatre down the street that plays Christmas movies and watch our favorite one, Die Hard. They serve beer there so everyone gets good and rowdy. We went on Saturday night and I wore the big faux fur coat I’m wearing in the pictures above and when Joel came downstairs, he asked me why I was dressed like Martha Wayne aka Batman’s dead mom.

We’re kicking Christmas weekend off by heading to Emo Karaoke tonight! It really is the most wonderful time of the year and I hope you all have the happiest of holidays! BYEEEEEEEEEEEEE.

If you did the math, you probably figured out that today is my 27th birthday (I stole the equation from Joel who used it for his 27th b-day who stole it from our friend, Ben, who used it for his 27th b-day too). Although I do love the fact that with every year of my life I continue to grow (mostly mentally and emotionally, but I also think I’m getting taller!), I’ll probably spend most of this year being extra careful about not breaking mirrors and not opening umbrellas indoors… you know, because of the whole “27 club” thing.

And now here are 27 things I’ve learned in my 27 years…..

wearing Spanx is always a good idea

it’s hard to pay attention when you’re trying to type a blog post and binge watch Community with your husband at the same time.

As of last year, we changed up the Blumer Family Christmas gift giving dynamic to be more of the Secret Santa variety. Having a $50 “suggested” limit to spend on one person is great because we can really focus on that person and get he/she what his/her little heart desires.

Idk about you, but I love gift giving almost as much as I love gift receiving! I’ve done some research and found a few cute online “Mom & Pop” shops where you can find the perfect lil something for your special someone.

I’m realizing now that this list consists of mostly things that I want. That’s okay, though! I have pretty damn good taste, so you can bet that if I’m coveting these things, your girlfriend/wife/mom/sister/aunt probably is too…. hopefully those are all different people and you aren’t dating your mom, sister, or aunt.

Although I don’t really like the idea of sitting down to a traditional Thanksgiving dinner and taking turns saying what we’re all thankful for (“I’m thankful to be here with all you dummies”) before we can wolf down some mashed potatoes, I still want to mention what I am thankful for this year. 2016 has been filled with really high ups and really low downs so far, and I think it deserves a bit of reflection.

I’m thankful for:

a husband who is on board with creating new traditions with me and is okay with the fact that I’ll probably never cook a turkey.

best friends who laugh at my jokes and always have my back.

a rewarding and fun 9-5, M-F job.

kittens who behave like total dickheads sometimes (it grounds us).

in-laws who not only don’t suck, but that are actually pretty freaking cool. I genuinely love them so much.

a sister who makes me laugh so hard that I spit out whatever I’m drinking.

The first time Joel and I ever attempted to do a couples costume for Halloween was a total joke. We, very last minute, decided to go as Blake and Adam from Workaholics (The idea was that I would curl and tease my hair and wear Joel’s short sleeve button down and Joel would take off his glasses and squint a lot). It just so happened that this was the same night that Joel wanted me to meet his parents. I was too busy trying to impress Ron and Sheila with my list of top ten favorite books to give our costumes much thought and we ended up scrapping the whole thing.

Oh how times have changed! This year marks the third year in a row that Joel and I will have, successfully, pulled off a great couples costume. These days, we give ourselves plenty of time to come up with a good idea and then execute it. We totally killed it as Han and Leia in 2014 and again as Katy Perry and Left Shark last year.

We narrowed it down, and realized that there are 4 categories of couples costumes and each year we’ll pick from a different one. Here are some examples:

Topical Costumes- No, not tropical costumes, nobody around here is going as a palm tree. Topical meaning whatever is popular in the media right now. Katy Perry/Shark were pretty topical because we took the idea from that year’s Super Bowl halftime show. In 2013, my sister in law went as a giant wrecking ball and her husband was Miley Cyrus- so good! I can see a lot of this year’s topical costumes centering around the election. Booooooring! Here’s a better idea: Ben and Lauren from The Bachelor. It was easy for us because we already kind of look like them.

Classic/Iconic Costumes- Can you get more classic than Princess Leia and Han?! What about Holly Golightly and Cat? Princess Buttercup and Westley? Popeye and Olive Oyl? Forrest Gump and Jenny? Napoleon Dynamite and Pedro?! A bearded Castaway and his beloved Wilson Volleyball? This is my favorite category to chose from.

Inanimate Object Costumes- Salt and Pepper, Spaghetti and Cheese, Lumberjack and Block of Wood, Builder and Sexy Piece of Drywall, Lamp and Light Bulb, the list goes on and on. Look around your kitchen and pick something!

Inside Joke Costumes- this is the winning category for us this year. Our costumes are not everyone’s cup of tea, but those of you who will get it will laugh! Stay tuned.

We are hosting our third annual Halloween party with our best blogger friends/neighbors, Nick and Sarah. We have The Simpsons Tree House of Horror episodes playing on mute with a sweet Halloween playlist (wereworlf bar mitvah, monstermash, etc.), a cool photo booth backdrop made by yours truly, and all the pizza and alcohol you can imagine. It’s always a good time!